1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a tractor-drawn machine for rejuvenating poultry litter accumulated over the ground surface of a poultry raising area and, in particular, to a machine for rejuvenating poultry litter that is loosened from the ground surface forward of a number of rotary peripheral cutting blades. The loosed and rejuvenated material is redeposited by the traveling machine back onto the floor of the poultry house without throwing the litter.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Used poultry litter contains ammonia and bacteria which are detrimental to the life of the poultry raised on it. The bacteria's byproducts can be used as a benefactor for new chicks, but the ammonia must be eliminated. Once a crop of chicks has used litter, a hard crust forms just under the surface of the litter and above the floor of the poultry house. This crust seals in ammonia that is being produced by the bird's droppings, and the ammonia cannot escape to the atmosphere. Instead without further action, the ammonia will seep out very slowly from the poultry floor and will damage the eyes and lungs of the later crop of young chicks placed on the used litter.
The benefactor element, bacteria, found in the litter can be used to improve the life of the chicks. By placing young chicks on old litter, the bacteria cause the day old chicks to build immunities to the bacteria. Whereas, if young chicks are placed on new litter, they will not acquire the immunities. Later, when the bacterium becomes present, the older chicks will not have the immunities needed in order to have a lower mortality rate.
Therefore, a need persists to destroy the crust that traps ammonia and, thereby, allow the ammonia to escape to the atmosphere and eliminate the ammonia from the litter. Litter can be rejuvenated by eliminating the crust from the poultry floor. The rejuvenated litter produces a soft area for the small chicks to bed down in, giving warmth, so the food that they consume goes to body weight and not body heat. The small amount of weight that the chick gains the first few days of life in the improved poultry house with rejuvenated litter can greatly increase profits from the production of poultry.
Poultry litter disintegrating machines now in commercial use utilizing flail units or rotors for comminuting the litter are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,619,412 and 5,078,328. In the '412 machine, a rearwardly and upwardly inclined scraper blade is positioned forward of and over the full axial length of the flail rotor. As the machine is advanced, the blade scrapes a layer of the litter from the poultry floor. The layer then moves rearwardly and upwardly along the inclined scraper blade into the operating zone of the rotor flail members, which disintegrate the litter as it moves rearwardly off the upper edge of the scraper blade. During this operation, gouging or digging of the scraper blade into the ground surface is prevented by setting the leading edge of the blade a predetermined distance above the ground surface. The cutting and lifting of the litter from the ground surface requires not only appreciable power, but care must be used in retaining the ground adjustment of the blade. In the '328 machine, ripper teeth extended forward of and mounted on the side walls of the machine act with the forward edges of the side walls to provide a section of litter for travel between the side walls. On advance of the machine, the section of litter between the side walls is acted upon by a rotary flail unit extended between and mounted on the side walls rearwardly of the ripper teeth for disintegration and discharge back to the ground floor for reuse. The density of the discharged litter material may be varied by varying its rate of discharge from the machine.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a machine of the above-described type, but which is more efficient, durable, safe to operate, and which requires little maintenance.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide a poultry rejuvenating machine that does not discharge disintegrated litter from the machine and provides rejuvenation of the litter to release ammonia while minimizing dust.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art during the course of the following detailed description.